Mari and the Early Israelite Experience

Abraham Malamat

In 1936 a French archaeological expedition to Mari, the capital of a kingdom on the Middle Euphrates in Syria, uncovered an archive of some 25,000 cuneiform tablets. Examining this huge corpus of Old Babylonian documents, Malamet shows how they reveal a vivid picture of Mesopotamia at a time when the Israelites were in their earliest formative stage.

Mari and the Early Israelite Experience

Abraham Malamat

Description

In 1936 a French archaeological expedition to Mari, the capital of a kingdom on the Middle Euphrates in Syria, uncovered a vast archive of some 25,000 cuneiform tablets. Examining this huge corpus of Old Babylonian documents, mostly from the Mari palace, Malamat provides evidence of how the tablets reveal a vivid picture of Mesopotamia at a time when the Israelites were in their earliest formative stage. The broad spectrum of the Mari documents, from exotic prophecies to political intrigue, provides innumerable opportunities for comparative research into early Israel, the Bible, and Biblical Hebrew.